Fashion Week Confidential: Street Style Photographer

In the week leading up to New York Fashion Week, we'll be bringing you dishy tell-alls from the behind-the-scenes folks who make fashion week run. Here, a photographer to the fashion stars tells his story.

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Tyler Joe

Photo: Tyler Joe

I think the first time I went to New York Fashion Week was 2007, and Paris maybe a year later. Back then, there weren't that many photographers. There were the Japanese photographers and a small handful of American photographers. But there wasn't really so much of a scene. The only people who came to the shows were actually invited—the working professionals. At the time, we had the opportunity to at least say hello to the people we were taking pictures of, and to have a quick chat with them about who they were wearing. So you got to have some sort of rapport and familiarity [with them]. But as street style became a thing, more and more people started showing up a) to take pictures or b) to be photographed. Every season, the number of people outside a show exponentially grows and it's just chaos. And the lurkers! You can't really speak, I mean, you just sort of…it's like shooting monkeys in a barrel. You just run around and take pictures and hope something comes out. It's embarrassing, it's really embarrassing actually, but that's the way it goes.

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New York Fashion Week is my favorite because I get to be at home instead of a hotel. I wake up as late as I possibly can to still be able to take an Uber to the first show. From the first show to sunset, I'm out running around. There's no time to really eat, except maybe McDonalds. You know, rain, sleet, hail, snow—[the outlets are] going to want the pictures. I get home when the sun goes down, have a quick meal, and sit and edit through like 3,000 photos. For 30 days straight. I usually wrap up at like three or four in the morning every day, four or five in the morning sometimes. I'm usually on four hours of sleep. It's super exhausting.

Weather wise, February in New York is the worst. So painful. There were a couple seasons—this is before I bought my Sorrels—that I just wore sneakers. I would have to go to Duane Reade in between shows to buy pairs of Hanes socks because mine would be soaking wet and ice cold. I would change socks to prevent frostbite.

You have to be a little strategic about which shows to go to. Show A will have really good models. Show B might be all the way downtown and also across town, but you have to go to that, too, because all the cool kids will be there. Then there are the designers that nobody knows but are repped by good PR agencies, which means that a lot of people will go to their shows anyway. There might not be many photographers at those shows because no one has heard of them, which is good for me. It's about trying to find shows and presentations that other people don't know about so you don't have a huge scrum of people. I never really get into any arguments with anybody else because, you know, it's 30 days. We're going to see these people every day for 30 days. I just sort of roll with the punches.

Physically, I don't really handle it that well. By the third week, in Milan—by London actually—my eyes are bloodshot red. People think I've been crying all night. Which I may have been! But usually not. By the time Paris ends, I don't want to look at a computer screen, I don't want to look at any clothes. When I get home, I just have to sit in my apartment for three or four days and not have any sensory input whatsoever.

What disappoints me about the state of street style is when I read or hear industry people talk shit or make fun of other editors or stylists who put in effort. When these people get dressed, it's not just to get photographed. I mean, they work in fashion—they love the clothes. I don't understand why someone would want to make another person feel bad for trying to express what they love through their clothes. Usually the people who complain are the ones who don't get photographed, you know what I mean? Sure, some people are strategic about what they wear. But, I think that overall it's still a reflection of their own personal taste and personal style, so I don't see what's so wrong with that. Deal with it.

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